What is a Lady?

New Zealand Tablet, 19 September 1912, Page 51

What is a Lady?

Of all the questions which he has essayed to answer, by his own admission, former Attorney-General Charles J. Bonaparte took upon his shoulders the greatest burdent when, at the commencement of the Arundel School, Baltimore, he spoke on ‘What is a Lady?’ He declared that in life she was not a living dressmaker’s model, but one who cheered, consoled, and adorned. Now the word “lady”,’ he said, is notable for two reasons; eminently unlike the object it denotes, it is itself a very, very old word. Probably it came to Britain with Hengist and Horsa (if you are still taught that there were such persons as Hengist and Horsa and that they came to Britain), and if it did come over with them from the old home beyond the sea of the Anglos and Saxons, there is no reason to believe it came as a debutante.. Moreover, it is genuine, unadulterated English; as it has come down to us from the rugged days of those same Anglos and Saxons, it has been gradually softened to suit our more tender throats and shortened to suit our more limited leisure. ‘ Compare it in these respects with the masculine word which nowadays, at least, it most readily suggests. “Gentleman” is about 500 years old, while “lady”, is probably 1500 at the very least. “Gentleman” is a combination of a French word and English word, while “lady” is pure English. ‘ The word “lady” is, I am taught, made up of “ hlaef,’ which we have gradually softened and shortened into “la” and “ dige,’ which has become in the course of centuries “dy.” There is, also, if I am not deceived by my great ignorance, no question that “ hlaef’ is of the old forms of our word “loaf,” as to which the “dige” stood for, learned men are not altogether agreed, but according to my very imperfect understanding of the matter the most of them think it meant “digger” or “kneader” of the dough used in the loaf, and “hlaefdige,” therefore, signified a maker of bread into loaves. ‘At first sight, breadmaking may not seem to ' be an especially aristocratic occupation, but it must be remembered that we are dealing with a state of society in which the use of bread made into loaves was a mark of social distinction. The old English name for a domestic servant was a -eater,” the good appetite of household help being no less notable for our ances-

tors than in these later days, and then, as now, they enjoyed the fare of their masters; husbandmen and other laborers had to eat cakes made in ashes.

‘lt is worthy of note, then, that in the first glimpse we have of the “lady” as shown to an Englishspeaking people, she is pictured as a housekeeper, a real working woman, not indeed probably working much with her own hands, for it is reasonable to conjecture that her duties were in the main those of supervision and instruction for “loaf-eaters” of both sexes, but in no wise given over to idleness or frivolity or empty ostentation. ” ‘ Three or four years since, I saw among the many stories of matrimonial infelicity an account of a fair plaintiff who said that she. must be provided with three maids and a fantastically large wardrobe, because what she called a “woman of fashion” had to change her dress at least six times a day and couldn’t under any circumstances wear the same gown .twice. Indeed, so far as I could understand,, she passed nearly all her time putting on and taking off clothes. • ‘ To my mind, this was assuredly a laborious existence, involving harder work than the making of many loaves